


The Whole Bleak Endless World

by Ununnilium



Category: DC Universe, Jack Kirby's Fourth World, The Northern Caves
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5219480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ununnilium/pseuds/Ununnilium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wrote to find the people like him in the world. But the world found him first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole Bleak Endless World

Furiously. Working furiously. The words were in his head and it was correct for them to come out, to arrange themselves on the paper just so, to fulfill his responsibility to – to fulfill his responsibility. The task was never done.  
  
They were coming out rapidly tonight. It had been quiet, perfect working conditions, other than a noise about half an hour ago somewhere outside that had sounded like BOOM! His fingers ached and he knew he would have to stop soon. If he didn't like the last time they would be useless for days and that would be no good for the work.  
  
He got up and did the stretches; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then the other way; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then he took his glass and went to get some water for his damned body.  
  
He was halfway across the room when he realized the dark shape was there. Sitting in his chair was a thing that looked like a man, all coarse and dark with glowing eyes. He stopped and stared at the wrongness, at the wrongness of its presence and its pose which was like a debonair layabout out of an old movie, relaxing on the hard wood chair as if it was an overstuffed recliner.  
  
"Good evening, Salby," the thing rumbled. "We have much to talk about."  
  
"Who..." His tongue suddenly thick in his mouth, the backs of his teeth tingling, a dreadful arrangement. "What do you want?"  
  
"I know what you've been looking for, Salby. We've been looking for it too."  
  
His glass clattered to the floor. "...you do? You've... read my work? You... understand?"  
  
"Yes." The thing leaned forward, crossing its hands in front of its face. "We have another name for it, but we have always been looking to understand Mundum. And you, Leonard Salby, have the mind that understands it the best."  
  
There were no other chairs, so he slumped against the wall. "Finally," he muttered, shaking his head. "Since Will..." He shook his head. "Good. Thank you." He looked up. "How many of you are there?"  
  
"Legions upon legions. More than enough."  
  
"So many, I—" Some definite wrongness was grinding, just out of view, sticking into the corner of his eye. "Enough for what? It's— well, it's not something that can really be 'enough'. The task, you know, it's never done."  
  
A noise like rock scraping against a raw mountainside; it was chuckling. "Indeed not. But more than enough to spread the word - your word. Your philosophy. Mundum, and the..." It paused, reaching around the words it wanted to say for one that would be... acceptable? "Awareness of it."  
  
"It's... not really..." Wrongness. WRONGNESS. "I was looking for people to _come_ to it, you can't _make_ someone understand it..." A weird flutter of hope lurched from a grave he had dug long ago. "...can you?"  
  
"You can." The thing stood, and it was massive, overwhelming, the reverse face itself. "We can. We will. We can give that to you, Salby. The whole bleak endless world."  
  
Suddenly, perspectives shifted; the sky was the land, and he saw what the awful thing was. "No!" he shouted, stumbling back, away from the great dread light streaming through the exechamp's gullet, the immolating equation. "It can't be given, it's just _there_! It's earned, it's _moral_ , it's bigger than what we want, it's the catharsis of morality and I thought you—"  
  
and he tripped over his glass and went flying head over heels and oh the slamming weight of the world came in and the darkness was over him, the stinted interrupted shadow of the spiral.  
  
"Yes. It is moral. It is the morality of ultimate, bleak, inescapable will - my will. The touch you have felt in your visions and nightmares is my own, and it is you who hold the means of spreading it. Come with me, Salby, and it shall spread across this world and many others. Resist me, and in the end, it will be taken from you, and you will be left, not as its priest, but as its first conquest."  
  
He laid on the floor, clarity of pain lancing through his head, and he understood. He understood how the matter was wrongly distributed, and he saw how it could be set to rights.  
  
"Of course." He pushed himself to his feet, slowly, old joints creaking. "I see, now, what I should have seen all along. Of course there would be a being such as you in the world- and of course my writing would bring you forth from it." He dusted himself off. "I'll get my manuscripts together, then."  
  
The thing raised a craggy eyebrow. "Surely, all that matters is in your head."  
  
"It... makes it easier to communicate the thing. To pass it along."  
  
"Of course. Take all the time you need, but..." Wrongness. "Do not delay."  
  
He nodded, not trusting his unready tongue. He walked back to his typewriter, and began gathering up pages. Casually, he opened the drawer of the desk; the revolver shone back at him.  
  
The task is never done, he thought. William. Thank you for proving it to me. I'm sorry that I can't meet you again. But maybe our echoes in this world will mingle, until they fade.  
  
There was a great thundering. The task was done.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr at http://ununnilium.tumblr.com/post/133299534905/.


End file.
